How to Make Our Churches the Safest Places on Earth without Compromising

At 17, Jennifer was the poster child of a Christian teen-ager. She was the model for her church youth group. As the Pastor’s daughter in a conservative church body, she lead the meeting many times. She was also secretly pregnant, a fact she couldn’t hide much longer.

Everyone looked up to her. On the outside, she was the perfect, evangelical Christian teen. Everyone wanted their kid to be just like Jennifer. She knew all the right New Testament answers, always knowing what to say and how to act.

On the inside, though, she was crumbling under the pressure. She longed for her daddy to be proud of her, and though he said it many times, her wounded heart didn’t hear it. She couldn’t articulate it, but her spirit felt dirty from being molested by a neighbor when she was 5, something no one, not even her, knew happened. The repressed memory hid the trauma, invoked as a defense mechanism by a child to survive.

In one world, she struggled to be good enough, desperately hoping the good she did would overpower how dirty she felt inside. In another world, she traded sex to hear a boy say he loved her, trusting the wrong messiah to make everything safe and ok. And for a few precious moments when they were alone it would work. Or at least it briefly felt like it did.

When she missed her period, and the home pregnancy test showed a “+”, she realized those two worlds were about to collide, and she felt crushed in the middle. Her perfect world of pretend at church was about to come crashing down in a fiery ball of reality. The disappointment of her family. The damage to her father’s reputation as a pastor. The disapproving glances from former friends and elders at church who would be barely polite behind thin smiles. The overwhelming shame. She felt the crushing weight of it all before it happened. There was no escape. Or was there?

This is the profile of the clients we see at our local crisis pregnancy center who break my heart the most. Pro-life clients for whom the shame, scorn, and rejection they would face at church is worse than having an abortion.

Think it doesn’t happen? I personally know a pastor’s daughter who, when she made her secret abortion public and repented, was told by her mentor, “If you ever come back to this church again, my foot will be the one holding the door closed the hardest.” This breaks my heart. Does it break yours?

Of the one in four women in the US who have had an abortion, 70% identify as Christians and regular church attenders.

It’s been said the church is the only army who shoots its own wounded.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I am not down on the church. I love the Body of Christ. This website exists because we’re passionate about seeing the Body of Christ walking in healing and wholeness and the fullness of our true identity.

And yes, holiness and purity are important. It’s hard to have intimacy with Jesus for long without them. I wrote a book on the subject (True Self: Sexual Integrity out of Intimacy with Jesus).

But it has to be ok to be wounded in church. If a fallen believer can’t go to church, where can they go?

Churches should be the safest places on the planet for someone experiencing a crisis. And many churches are. But some are far from it.

Jesus accepted the woman caught in adultery, prostitutes, tax collectors, what that culture considered the worst of the worst. But I’m no better. I’m the worst of the worst. We all are. We all need a Savior. So why can’t we have Jesus’ compassion for those looking for one?

Ok, I get that we don’t expect people to check their sin at the door. But if someone’s living a blatantly sinful life style, how long do we wait before addressing the sin in their life?

Honestly, I’ve no idea. That’s not my problem. That’s the Pastor’s problem. He gets to deal with that according to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit for that person. My problem is making sure I love them the way Jesus loves me. Maybe the Holy Spirit will prompt me to say something to them about their lifestyle, at some point. But it’ll most likely be after we have a relationship, and in a way that convicts not condemns, leaving them feeling accepted and loved, not rejected.

I know we can do this. That’s the church’s job, after all, to love as we’ve been loved. To be Jesus’ loving arms of acceptance and forgiveness.

So how do we do this? Can the Church really be the safest place on earth without compromising? Yes we can. I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit in us to make us into all we are called to be.

So here’s how. We decide to be safe. The church will be the safest place on earth when we decide to be the safest people on earth. This decision affirms some obvious truths we so often forget.

Action Step: I decide the following:

• Acknowledging my judgement of others often reflects my own fear, and
• Acknowledging this is not my church, this God’s church, I will not reject who he brings in.
• I decide to let the pastor deal with the person’s lifestyle and sin, That’s the Pastor’s job, not mine.
• I decide to love them as they are, like Jesus loves us. That’s my job.
• I decide to speak life into their lives, when prompted by the Holy Spirit. I pledge to do so lovingly, wrapped in encouragement and acceptance.

What do you think? Will you make this decision to be a safe person with me? Would this make a difference in the world?

Have you experienced Jesus’ loving forgiveness through your local church? On the giving or the receiving end? Or not? Tell us about it in the comments, and please share if you think this post would inspire someone else.